Experiment in a Glass Cage
by Mona
Summary: A short little story about Hamsterviel and his experiments. As light as Piewolvesandsuch's "Thrown into the Fires" is dark. I apologize to her in advance.


"Experiment in a Glass Cage"   
  
Disclaimer: Lilo & Stitch and its characters are copyright Disney. Codis, Patty/Swifty, and Freud are mine. If you want to use them in a fanfic, be my guest. You don't even have to ask.   
  
Author's Note: This story isn't really horror. I just wanted to depict Hamsterviel as dangerous -- but a buffoon too.

"This got a laugh from Hamsterviel. "Now, now, Jumba. You don't think these experiments have FEELINGS, do you?" -- from "You Bet", Chapter 4  
  
(Xenon Sector: K37)   
  
Dr. Hamsterviel was pleased, which was unusual. He gazed at the sole experiment in his clutches. His pleasure was too great to even think of the others -- like 032, who had beeped so loud whenever the hamster-like alien lied that the rodent had to send it back. 119, after giving Hamsterviel one heck of a smothering, had oozed through a crack in the floor and gone to a planet where chocolate is sacred. Or 586, who had simply eaten through the titanium cell wall. Yes, he was too pleased to recall the other incidents.   
  
This experiment, 056 in number, was built like a miniature cheetah. Her four legs were long, almost gangly. Unretractable claws tipped each foot. The ears were pointed, like those of a lynx. The solid peach fur was marked with white 'socks' on her feet and the edge of her long tail.  
  
Hamsterviel had only taken pulse rates, heart rate, and respiration rate as well as collected DNA samples and assessed her metabolism.   
  
She was a swift runner, fast enough to break his radar gun. Jumba had bragged that this one could run at speeds approximately the speed of light. She could approach it within a few hundred kilometers -- but her metabolism could only sustain that speed for a few seconds at a time. However, she could endure long runs of slower speeds. Sadly, strength was lacking.   
  
There was one more trait that Dr. Hamsterviel liked. 056 was docile. When he yelled at her, she shrank back in shame. Every command was obeyed with a swift "Yes, Master." She could speak, but never complained. The past week had been marked with occasions when Hamsterviel was in a bad mood. He had taken it out on his prisoner at first, but he got tired of whipping 056 because she never flinched or cried out. What was the fun of whipping someone if you couldn't hear their shrieks of agony? When he had thrown the whip down in disgust, she had actually thanked him.   
  
Now Hamsterviel held a gleaming syringe. This was going to solve his problems. He injected the serum into 056.   
  
A few minutes passed. Then the experiment seemed to expand. She instantly tripled her weight -- in muscle, not fat. She reared up on her hind legs and began lifting heavy objects. Then she clawed at the walls, yanking out several chunks. "Meega nala quiesta!" She ran in a frenzy, tearing tiles from the ceiling and floor.   
  
"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Hamsterviel. "I shall clone her and make my own personal army! Ha ha ha!"   
  
Halfway through the evil laughter, 056 stopped. The muscles receded into her body and the excess energy seemed to fade.   
  
The hamster-alien stomped his little foot. "No, no, no! That is not supposed to happen! Those steroids were supposed to be potent enough to last years! You stupid little freak!"   
  
"I apologize, Master," 056 replied. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She had failed her boss.   
  
"Sorry is not good enough!" yelled the white alien, eyes blazing. He grabbed 056 by her tail and threw her back into her glass prison. He snatched up his teddy bear and went off to sulk.   
  
056 leaned against the wall of her cage. Most of the cages were metal, but this one was made of glass. She was thin enough to slide between bars. 056 noticed her food dish was full. The food tasted terrible, but it was filling. Dr. Hamsterviel specifically prepared the food to fulfill the experiment's specific nutritional needs. Not out of care or affection, but simple because he needed her to be in prime physical condition.   
  
The capture a week ago seemed distant. 056 had barely emerged from her activated pod and sipped some water from a pond when a huge, shark-like creature had appeared. Too terrified to move, the hapless experiment had been scooped into a capsule and taken to a spaceship. Inside the spaceship was a teleporter. 056 had caught a glance of a yellow koala-like creature before the shark had activated the teleporter. The big black eyes of Experiment 625 contained a hint of what? Sympathy? Pity?   
  
There was a flash of light from Hamsterviel's end of the teleporter. The evil scientist pulled out of his snit to examine the new arrival.   
  
A gray experiment was in the teleporter. He had the typical large black experiment eyes. He stood on his hind legs. Lighter gray fur grew on the sides of his head and on his chin, making him look like a furry version of Sigmund Freud. He was Experiment 307, who psychoanalyzed everybody he met. He was accurate -- annoyingly so.   
  
Hamsterviel opened the capsule. 056 perked her ears up.   
  
307 spoke first. "Well, if it isn't the nefarious Doctor Hamsterviel. What's your major malfunction?" No answer. "I know. You're overcompensating for being short."   
  
"I am not short!" snarled Hamsterviel.   
  
"Then you're what? Vertically challenged? Typical denial. Your aim for galatic conquest is your way of relieving aggression acquired from being ignored and picked on by bigger and strong beings you've encountered in your life."   
  
"SHUT UP!"   
  
"And you hate it when others are right. By your definition, everyone else is wrong and you are always right." 307 knew the scientist was getting madder by the minute. He continued. "Your reaction serves to credit my diagnosis. For all your scheming, technology, and hurtful words, you are an emotionally deprived child crying for attention. This might explain why you sleep with a teddy bear. A stuffed animal is an outlet for your deeply buried soft side. Since it's inanimate, it doesn't judge you and always listens to what you have to say."   
  
"Sounds like Gantu with 625," cracked Hamsterviel. "Only the fat yellow thing talks."   
  
"625's sarcasm is a defense mechanism to hide the feelings of rejection by his creator. His lazyness and cowardice are character flaws, but he feels that he has to take care of himself because no one else will. He subconsciously envies 626. I call it 'one-up' syndrome. 625 seeks love from Gantu--"   
  
"Stop with all the analyzing!"   
  
"Gantu himself expressed jealousy toward his older brother. He felt his father only loved that brother and his mother only loved the youngest child--"  
  
Hamsterviel was jumping up and down. "SILENCE!"   
  
Freud stared him down. "You think you can frighten me? I survived sessions of four hours w my creator and his then-wife. Each discussion would turn into an argument and then a shouting match. And I'd have to listen to it. I can take anything you throw at me, Rupert von Hamsterviel!"   
  
"My name is Jacques!"   
  
"You think 199 is the only experiment that knows your deepest secrets? Think again. You were born Rupert Reinhart von Hamsterviel. It's on your birth certificate, you psycho gerbil."   
  
"HAMSTER!" Hamsterviel grabbed 307 by the scuff of his neck, who bit back. Enraged, the white alien threw the recalcitrant in 056's glass cage and went to put disinfectant on his wound.   
  
"You could have gotten on his better side," whispered 056.   
  
307 blinked. "056! I remember you! You were the one who sat in the corner with 057 and never said anything!"   
  
057! 056 remembered her best friend back in the lab. "I miss him." She was a messenger who could understand several different languages, but Jumba felt he needed a coding experiment to encode messages and decode replies. 057 was created. 056 and 057 had been inseparable since. They ate meals side-by-side and worked on puzzles together. "Which one are you?"   
  
"Experiment 307, the psychoanalyzer. Jumba was too cheap to hire a real psychiatrist. You're interesting. You haven't been brainwashed, but you're Hamsterviel's willing slave."   
  
"I am not a slave. I am his willing servant. It's my lot in life. 307, we are illegal genetic mutants. We're abominations, undeserving of life. I should be grateful for Dr. Hamsterviel, for it is not my place to desire better."   
  
"You're identifying with the aggressor, but he's using you. Escape with me, Patty. We'll go to Earth. That's where everyone else is. It's the place you were taken from after your activation."  
  
"It was a pretty place."   
  
"It was paradise. 626 -- you haven't seen him since he was still in development -- and his friend Lilo help us find homes. Lilo even gives us names. I'm Freud. You need one too. How about Patty?"  
  
"How did the shark get you?"   
  
"He scooped me in a capsule and knocked Lilo into one of the sea caves. It was too steep for her to climb out and the tide was coming in. Stitch had to save her."   
  
056 was about to respond when Hamsterviel came in. His face was lit up with a maniacal grin.   
  
Hamsterviel faced them, holding a barbed whip. "I devised the perfect punishment, 307. Jumba said you were sympathetic and now it'll be your downfall. I shall punish 056 physically -- and verbally!" He opened the cage and snapped heavy shackles on Freud.   
  
Patty was too scared to run. "Master, please!"   
  
The mad doctor raised the whip, but suddenly the asteroid began to shake. Since K37 was an asteroid floating in space, pieces of space junk often collided with it. Hamsterviel lost his footing and struck his head on the metal table. The glass cage fell to the floor and shattered.   
  
056 opened Freud's shackles. "Let's get out of here."   
  
The two experiments crawled into the ventilation duct past guard posts and cells. They found the transportation terminal and got into a small spaceship. They took off, but the alarm sounded. In his cell, Hamsterviel regained consciousness and showed up for a head count. All the prisoners were accounted for, but one spacecraft was missing. Strange!   
  
Freud guided the coordinates for Kauai, Hawaii, North America, Earth, Milky Way, Gamma Quadrant. The ship whizzed through space. 056 was elated, but Freud was getting motion-sickness. The spaceship skimmed across the ocean and landed on the coast of Kauai. Well, crashed, not landed. They climbed out of the wreckage to hear a honk.   
  
In front of them was a reddish-brown anteater-like creature. Experiment 158.   
  
"Great work, Finder!" cheered Lilo. "Freud! You're back!"   
  
057, whom Lilo had found and named Codis, blinked. "056? Is it really you?"   
  
056 smiled at him.   
  
Stitch watched them embrace. "Ohana means family."   
  
"But what's the one true place they belong?" Lilo asked. "Codis and..." She thought a moment. "Jumba told me you were really fast. How does Swifty sound?"   
  
056 nodded and licked 057's face.   
  
Stitch came up with Freud's new home: the hospital. Freud became their most popular psychiatrist. Patients soon flocked to hear. Most of them were cured of their mental ailments. Since Freud didn't have a prescription pad (or an MD, for that matter), he couldn't prescribe medicines but gave his patients homemade remedies courtesy of Jumba.   
  
Codis and Swifty took jobs at the local military base. The soldiers would write messages to Washington DC and Codis would translate into code. Swifty would rush to Washington, deliver the coded reply, and hurry back to Hawaii. Codis would decode the reply.   
  
And Hamsterviel? When he realized he had lost his experiments, his raving had become so loud that the warden referred him to the prison psychiatrist.   
  
"Tell me about your mother," said the psychiatrist.   
  
Hamsterviel let out a yell. Half of K37 shook.   
  
The end


End file.
